Craig Grannell

Native British Animals you say?

If we’re going for fictional animals, I’m thinking either Looshkin or Bunny vs Monkey on the 50.

Isn’t this essentially:

BOE: What would everyone like on their banknotes this time?

British public: Well, we really like animals!

BOE: Sounds good – let’s do th—

Badenoch: WHY NOT CHURCHILL? BANK OF ENGLAND AND LABOUR ARE WOKE GONE MAD!

Today’s Tories. Brits… like wildlife. The BoE did a public consultation and… probably found that Brits like wildlife. But, no, this also has to be culture war bullshit, because Badenoch is so buried in X now she doesn’t know anything else.

Isn’t this essentially:

BOE: What would everyone like on their banknotes this time?

British public: Well, we really like animals!

BOE: Sounds good – let’s do th—

Badenoch: WHY NOT CHURCHILL? BANK OF ENGLAND AND LABOUR ARE WOKE GONE MAD!

When I said 'Kemi Badenoch is so partisan, under her the Tories would oppose puppies and kittens if Labour said something nice about them', I didn't mean it literally.

Apparently, today’s the day when I discover that the overlap between British legal minds and 1980s gaming is well beyond zero. :D

We just need another British lawyer to pop up now in favour of the C64 (since DAG is a Speccy fan), to get a most surreal online playground scrap meets courtroom drama.

What is not happening with constitutionalism in the United States and the United Kingdom

A look at constitutionalism (and the lack of it) in the US and UK, with reference to a 1980s computer magazine column

By me at The Empty City

Substack:
emptycity.substack.com/p/what-is-no...

(Oli Frey print of Zzap!64 issue 3 to the left of it!)

Framed ZX Spectrum, alongside Oli Frey poster.

I was a C64 lad, but the Speccy definitely had more flexible underlying abilities when it came to game making, and the graphics could be fab in the right hands. The original 48k sounded bloody awful compared to the SID though. As a *machine*, however, it looked wonderful. I have one on the wall.

Probably don’t look *too* deep into Paul Sumner either.

Now wondering if it’s an oddity or somehow inevitable that great British legal minds end up referencing one of the best video game mags ever to exist. And that Oli Frey art still kicks bottom.

It says a lot that Yvette Cooper, of all people, is looking progressive and reasonable here.

Lego’s Luigi Mario Kart set finally gives Mario someone to race across your desk | Stuff Build your Nintendo Lego collection with the latest Mario Kart entry, Luigi and his Mach 8

These giant Lego Mario Kart sets look very nice, and I in some ways prefer the Luigi one to Mario. But… I’d much prefer Yoshi! www.stuff.tv/hot-stuff/te...

That’s more or less the current policy at mini-G’s school – and one I’m on board with. Next year is going to be… interesting. Local buses prefer digital tickets. Parents use phones for tracking. Kids need a device for homework and timetables. So *at best*, parents will need to buy extra gear now.

Yeah. I can’t see too many folks on Apple’s leadership team manually faffing about with devices. The nanny or subordinates probably deal with that.

My kid, eg, is very young when it comes to TV and movies. But as a reader, she’s very mature. Games sit somewhere in the middle. So we tailor access and suggestions towards what we know she will like. Apps exist in a somewhat similar space.

We did the same. Mini-G had used tech since she was a toddler (no surprise, given my job!), has long loved IPads and then got a smartphone at 11 – but it’s also pretty locked down. The ‘conversation’ approach also enables you to work out together what’s appropriate for *you*. Same with all media.

Given the age of your youngling, are you in an area where there’s a rolling ban coming in though? (Here, mini-G is the last Year 7 allowed a smartphone. As of next school year, there will be a total on-site ban for incoming Year 7s, which will then work its way through the entire school by 2030.)

She and you seem to be going about things the right way. And, yes, conversation and education is the way to go. Mini-G is not always happy with our decisions as parents (Roblox is a straight “nope”, for example), but she has relative and growing online freedoms as she shows she can be trusted.

Well, yes. I imagine there are quite a few illiberal and conservative people who’d very much be up for that.

These systems do need to improve, I agree. I suspect no one sufficiently senior at Google and Apple has to deal with these things themselves though. If they did, I imagine improvements would have come much sooner.

Also, stretching that analogy somewhat, would adults have been OK not only with banning kids from going outside but also having to verify their age before they went out themselves, and also had all their activity tracked?

There was an analogy made about how we legislated to make the physical environment safer for kids. Which is true but we didn’t do it by banning kids from going outside. We already have the laws to make the Internet safer, let’s enforce them

There is, of course, a difference between, say, Elite on a BBC Micro and WhatsApp. But I find it astonishing how much reporting completely glosses over existing controls and more nuanced regulatory possibilities before leaping straight to bans – without considering wider ramifications and/or gaps.

I was one of the older parents when mini-G was at junior school (she just started secondary) and I grew up with 8- and 16-bit computers. Was at uni when the internet became a thing. Lived through multiple OH NO WORLD IS ENDING things with video games, other internet scares, etc.

I’ve basically come round to being strongly against blanket age bans on social media because, well… I can’t see a scenario where it doesn’t lead to everything internet-connected requiring an ID to use. I don’t want to have to scan my face to log into Netflix, thank you very much UK government.

For Brits, it’s worth noting that there have already been rumblings about age-gating *Wikipedia*, because it has content that is “inappropriate” for minors. So it’s hardly hyperbolic to suggest there is a slippery slope. We just haven’t yet stepped fully on to it.

What we have is a load of local authorities, headteachers and politicians keen on being prescriptive and parents ending up nodding along. It would be better if we were regulating Big Tech, teaching kids about mindful tech use, and educating parents about the various available tools.

What we have is a load of local authorities, headteachers and politicians keen on being prescriptive and parents ending up nodding along. It would be better if we were regulating Big Tech, teaching kids about mindful tech use, and educating parents about the various available tools.